Miss Mary Martha Crawford (27 page)

little more content now she had the outside boy, and Peg was very

content and also possibly because of the outside boy. And there was

Mildred. Mildred was just beaming. She dreaded the evening

conversation which would alternate between Lady Brockdean and the

doctor. And Aunt Sophie, Aunt Sophie was singing all day long. At one time she had loved Aunt Sophie, but now she got on her nerves. Yet she no longer saw herself ending her days like Aunt Sophie. Oh no! No!

not if she could do anything about it. She would suffer anything but that.

She went up the steps and into the dim and cool hall, then

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turned towards the kitchen where she expected to find Martha.

Martha was at the table preparing some fruit for a pie. At the far end of the kitchen below the shelf that held the iron pans Peg sat in her usual place peeling potatoes, her scarred fingers moving with their

former dexterity now. She raised her bright face and looked towards

Nancy, saying, "Eeh! you look stewed, Miss Nancy."

Nancy did not, as at one time she would have, come back with some

laughing quip such as, "Well, I'd be nice served up with custard,"

instead, putting the letters on the table, she looked at Martha and

said dully, "There's one from Roland."

"Oh, open it, my hands are stained. Read it out."

Nancy opened the letter and began to read:

Dear Martha Mary, I am sorry I've been unable to write before but I've been so busy. As you know, a fortnight sees the end of term and the

end of my time here, and I'm not sorry, in fact I'm delighted, and for more reasons than one.

I shall not be returning home directly, but when I come I shall be

bringing a guest with me. Would you mind having Papa's room freshened up? I may tell you now I have some surprising news for you. I hope it will delight you as it has done me. I cannot say more at the moment.

My love to Mildred and Nancy and, of course, to your dear self.

Your affectionate brother, Roland.

"He's bringing a guest!" Nancy looked straight into Martha's face and, her tone slightly caustic, she said, "He's starting ]ate, isn't he?

It's the first time he's ever brought anyone home. We should feel

honoured. "

Martha nodded slowly.

"It's likely this friend he calls Arnold." She did not say "Oh dear me, I wish he wasn't', but her mind stressed the words. And he wanted his friend to have their father's room, and only three weeks at the

most to

see to everything. What could she do with that room to freshen it

up.

It needed all stripping and redecorating. And what about food. The

young man would be used to all kinds of special dishes. Oh dear, dear, he shouldn't have done this knowing the circumstances, it was

thoughtless of him. Still. She turned and looked at Nancy. This

man's visit might be a blessing in disguise, it could be an answer to her prayer with regard to Nancy's happiness. And so she must see what she could do with that room; besides which, she must look up her

cookery book.

Forcing a note of pleasure into her voice she said, "Well, that'll be nice, won't it, to have a guest in the house again. We'll have to

start scurrying round, all of us." She glanced back at Peg who was grinning at her, but when she looked towards Nancy again it was to see her walking out of the kitchen, her body limp, her shoulders stooped.

She no longer ran everywhere.

She returned to her pie making and she prayed directly to God asking Him to make the coming guest so nice that Nancy would forget William Brockdean. And when she finished the thought entered her mind as to

what Roland's surprise news might be.

By three o'clock in the afternoon the air was so heavy that it seemed to scorch the throat. Martha, seeing Nancy crossing the drive, went to the window and called, "You're not going walking in this heat, surely Nancy, it's bad for you!"

Nancy slowed her step but did not stop and she spoke to Martha over her shoulder, her manner off-hand, detached.

"It's cooler down by the river," she said, then she walked on.

The river was low, there was merely a trickle flowing between the

stepping-stones. She crossed them but instead of mounting the wooded bank she walked for almost half a mile further along the river bed

which now looked like a boulder strewn beach; then she went up the

incline, which was actually the river bank, crossed a field and began to climb upwards, until she paused panting and sweating on a rise

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that overlooked a winding road and a valley with low hills beyond.

She stared at the hills. She had seen him driving the sheep down them on Monday in the direction of Hexham, but he hadn't been alone, there had been another man with him, likely his father, most assuredly his father because he often spoke of him and how they worked together. He seemed to be fond of his father, lie seemed to be fond of both his

parents, yet he laughed at his mother and said she didn't know Sunday from whistle cock Monday, whatever that was supposed to mean, but that she could count silver quicker than a moneylender.

She had seen him at least once a week since their first meeting on that dreadful day, that seemed but yesterday, yet when she tried to recall the events in it they fused into. the past like old history, and she could get nothing clear in her mind concerning it.

She liked the drover . Robbie. He was twenty years old and could

neither read nor write, he had told her so, but without any shame.

There was something about him that attracted her with an irresistible force. He was so alive, his litheness, his movements, his voice, they all spoke of vibrant youth. Then his eyes, and the way they looked at her, sparkling from their depths with that precious thing she had lost when William spurned her. She knew that something was going to happen between her and the drover, she didn't know when or exactly what, but she knew that he would make it happen, and soon.

She saw him when he was afar off. He was alone, hatless as usual, his hair even in the distance making his head appear as if it were three times its size.

She knew he had caught sight of her when he stopped;

then she watched him, like one of his sheep, or more like a ram,

bounding over the ground, coming ever nearer until he was at the foot of the hill, where he paused for a moment and looked upwards, then came scrambling towards her, and when he straightened up she saw that his face was running in rivulets of sweat.

"It's singeing, isn't it?"

"Yes, it's very hot."

"You been waitin' long?"

"Waiting? I wasn't waiting."

"Oh." He smiled at her but without derision, then added, "You've never been this far afore. Why, you're not more than a mile away from our

house."

"Really!" She turned and looked in the direction in which he was pointing.

"That 'clump of trees on the top of the hill just to the right there.

Oh my, listen to that." He cocked his head to one side.

"We're going to get it."

She looked up into the low sky. Of a sudden it appeared to be falling on to the hills. The light was going like a guttering candle and the rumbling thunder came nearer.

"You'll get wet afore you get home. You must have walked all of three miles.... You look baked."

She rubbed her finger round her sweating cheeks and she smiled as she said, "I feel baked."

"Wouldn't like to come back and shelter in our house?"

"No, thank you."

"Aw well, you'll have to shelter some place.... Look, here it comes."

As he spoke large drops of rain spattered on them.

"Come on.

Come on this way. " He grabbed her hand now and pulled her into a run as he said, " There's a ship pen over beyond that ridge; it's clean, not used any more. The house was burned down years ago. Coo! Lord,

but it is comin' down. "

She was running in step beside him now, her body bent against the

deluge, and not until he pulled her through the doorless aperture into the derelict ship pen did she look up;

then gasping, she stood with her back against the wall, while he stood in front of her panting.

"By! you can run. I used to watch you runnin'. I used to think you looked like a young deer; but it's different altogether to feel you

running, like being on a horse."

She made no comment, she was still gasping. The water i95

was actually running' down her body to her waist, where the bands of her petticoats sopped it up.

"You're soakin'." His hands were on her shoulders.

"You should've had the sense to bring a doak with you.... Stop

shivering, you can't be cold, it's like hot water."

Still she made no reply, and he took his hands from her shoulders and, turning from her, went and stood in the opening He stood there saying nothing while the slanting rain beat on to his head and face.

When she turned her head and looked at him, he did not move but very quietly he said, "You like to marry me?"

The sound of her in drawing breath turned him towards her again, but he did not go to her but went on, "You're ripe for marrying." He paused now, then demanded, "Well, aren't you?"

"I ... I don't know what you mean." She was moving slowly along the wall towards the corner where the light was dimmer.

"Aw, you know what I mean all right, an' you know you do. And I know what I mean. You know something? I've wanted you since I first

clapped eyes on you, but as things stood I thought then, she's not for me. But now I think you are." His tone was light as if he were

talking about everyday things, like the sheep.

He went towards her now, and when his hands came for ward she gasped and shrank back against a protruding wooden partition; but he didn't touch her with them, he placed them on the rotten wood at each side of her head. And now his voice coming from deep in his throat and all

lightness gone from it, he said, "I could take you down and you wouldn't put up a fight 'cos you're ready for it, but I won't have you that way, I want to marry you. Do you understand what I'm sayin', I

want to marry you."

As his face moved slowly closer to hers, her eyes stretched wide and she stared as if hypnotized into the depths of greyness that now were shadowed into black. When his mouth touched hers, his hands slid over her shoulder blades and drew her towards him. With a soft pressure

she was held tightly against him and he kept her there for a full

minute and she did not resist in any way.

Their bodies were apart again, but he still had his hands on her when he said, "Well, what is it to be?"

She could not answer; it was impossible to say "Yes', but she bent her head and slowly she fell forward against him again, and it was the

answer. It was done.

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"You are mad, girl, stark-staring mad, you can't do this."

"I'm going to do it, Martha Mary; it's all settled."

"Oh no, it's not." Martha's voice was loud and strident.

"I shall go across to that place and..."

"There's no need, he's calling to see you today on his way back from the market."

Martha now held her face tightly between her hands and screwed up her eyes as she repeated, "Nancy! Nancy! you don't know what you're doing.

This is a form of panic, a rebound from William. "

"Yes perhaps, but I'm doing it."

"I can stop you, you're not of age."

"Well, if you do, then I shall take matters into my own hands and go and live with him in sin."

"Nancy!"

"Don't look like that, Martha Mary, please." There was a semblance of the old Nancy in the tone and expression now.

"I like him, and more than like him, I could say. And, more to the point, he asked me to marry him, and--' All lightness leaving her tone, she ended, " I intend to be married, Martha Mary. "

"But you will, my dear, you will. I know you'll be eighteen shortly, but remember Roland's letter and the guest he's bringing, it could mean something."

"Yes, it could mean something, or it could turn out to mean nothing.

Remember what Dilly used to say when she used to tell us the tales of the starving people in the strikes, when they had no hope of money or food and wanted to return to work but the agitators used to make them promises. She always ended with "Live, horse, and you'll get grass"

Well, I cannot wait to see if I will get grass, Martha Mary. I might, like Dilly's people, starve to death i. for want of love. What is more I want to get away, away from this house, everything. "

"Oh, don't say that you will never be without love, and don't say you want to get away from everything." i Nancy's head drooped; then she said, "Not from you, Martha Mary, not from you, but you know what I mean."

"Yes, I know what you mean, Nancy, and who you mean. But Aunt Sophie cannot help her condition, and you used to love her."

"Yes, I know, but... but now I fear her, I fear I'll become like her.

I do. I do. "

"That's utterly ridiculous. I've told you time and again her illness is not hereditary."

"You could keep on telling me but I still wouldn't believe it. She became worse after she was jilted and I can see myself just like her, withering away, shut in that room day after day, year after year just like her until I died."

Slowly Martha bowed her head. What could she say? There was nothing

she could either say or do that could convince Nancy that she was

wrong, that she was working through the turmoil of a broken heart and that some day soon she'd come up out of her misery.

What would happen to her when she did emerge and found herself married to this drover boy? |a drover. She couldn't believe it. She had seen these men in Hexham on market days. They all gathered together in the evening and frequented the inns, and she understood they fought like madmen. What was more, they were merciless to the beasts they drove, prodding them unnecessarily with goads. And Nancy, her dear, dear